Virtually putting top leaders such as MM Joshi and Sushma Swaraj under Narendra Modi, the BJP on Friday unveiled its Team 2014 to be headed by the Gujarat chief minister.
Party veteran LK Advani — who had rebelled against Modi as the BJP’s poll face — and party president Rajnath Singh
will play mentors along with the ailing Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Friday’s announcement was a return to a full-blown Modi pitch that began in Goa in June, when the BJP elevated him as its face for the general elections. The past few days had seemed to hint at a more collective campaign wherein both Modi and Rajnath would pick poll committees in consultation with other top leaders.

There will be 20 sub-committees to support the main team. “The central campaign committee and committees under it will be steered by Narendra Modi,” general secretary Ananth Kumar said.

“The central committee is nothing but the parliamentary board, but Modi is sitting on it as the party’s de-facto leader,” a BJP leader said.

Almost all the leaders have been involved in some way or another, making the arrangement a mammoth one. Rajasthan leader Vasundhara Raje didn’t make the cut. “She is busy with polls. But the CMs of poll-bound MP and Chhattisgarh are here as they are CMs,” explained a BJP leader.

Making the Modi stamp even clearer, his aide Amit Shah has been tasked with reaching out to first-time voters, which means the party’s youth campaign will be centered around the CM. Shah will also be in the publicity committee — jointly headed by Swaraj and Jaitley — with Rajnath loyalist Sudhanshu Trivedi.

Joshi will be in charge of drafting the manifesto, assisted by Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Bihar leaders Sushil Modi and Shahnawaz Hussain.Varun Gandhi will help organise party rallies alongside Ananth Kumar.

Gopinath Munde and Ravi Shankar Prasad will draft a chargesheet against the UPA while Piyush Goel will be involved with the information communication campaign.

A proposal to divide the campaign into zonal committees was shot down at the last moment as some senior leaders weren’t happy with the distribution of states, sources said.

Highlights of Ananth Kumar's press conference:

# We have finalized our election management team: BJP

# Manifesto committee to be headed by MM Joshi

# BJP will release vision document for 2014 polls under the leadership of Nitin Gadkari